CONCEPT
What the Machine Cannot Mean
The Ludwig Wittgenstein — On AI volume's diagnosis of the categorical gap between producing appropriate linguistic output and participating in the form of life that gives the output its human significance.
A machine produces I promise to help you with this project. The sentence is grammatically correct, contextually appropriate, responsive to the conversational situation. A human partner might recognize it as a move in the game of promising. But is the machine playing the game? The question is not about sincerity. It is about grammar in Wittgenstein's technical sense — the conditions that constitute promising as an activity. Promising is embedded in a form of life that includes commitment: undertaking an obligation that persists through time, that constrains future action, that gives the other person reason to expect performance. The machine cannot commit because commitment requires persistence through time and stakes in the world. The machine produces the linguistic output of promising. It cannot participate in the form of life that gives promising its point.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The chapter's core distinction is between producing the output of a language game and participating in